Wouldn’t your business breathe a heaving sigh of relief if all business data and applications remain in one central place for easy management? How would it be if your data back-up and data restore work remains centralized and almost a breeze?
Scott Alan Miller, an IT expert who writes for Datamation[1], claims that IT managers and administrations swear by the central computing model for exactly the same reasons mentioned above in an article titled “Thin Clients in The Dark and Distant Past”[2].
What on earth is Thin Client Computing?
A Thin Client (lean client or Slim Client) is basically a computer that is stripped bare of all the usual bells and whistles. It is designed such that the client allows only for the user interface and some very basic applications, while the bulk of the actually processing and computing occurs on the server. In contrast, most of the computer networks have “fat clients” which do most of the processing themselves while the server executes some important functions along with storage, etc. A typical thin client consumes even less power than what an energy star rated PC consumes in its “sleep mode“.
Now, that’s an interesting point since we have been talking a lot of why companies must go green. Please read:
Further, the concept of Thin Client Computing is “Green” already because they produce much less e-waste. By the time these thin clients near the end of their lifecycle, there isn’t much to be disposed off since there are literally no hard-drives, much fewer memory modules (RAM) and fewer components. Verizon[3], for example, manages to achieve about 30% savings in energy consumption thanks to its use of thin clients, companywide.
Why bother with Thin Client Computing?
Hewlett Packard, on its small and medium business homepage[4], has a good slogan for Thin Client Computing Solutions “Think Big’; go thin”. If your company has issues such as bleeding desktop replacement expenses, glaring holes in network security, a troubling time to enable data access to remote or mobile workers and if you have had problems to secure and provide better access to your data while being able to manage this data from one centralized location, Thin Client Computing might just be what you should consider.
Still wondering?
Gartner research[5] has it that Thin Clients contribute to substantial cost savings in long-term: a whopping 79% of lowered downtime per user, a juicy 16% cost savings in capital costs, a 34% reduced expenses when it comes to maintenance and an overall cost reduction of 48%. Also, it’s been found that it’s 19% much less to operate with Thin Client Computing.
Have you given it a thought yet?
References:
[1] Datamation:[2] Thin Clients in The Dark and Distant Past
[3]Business week: How Verizon Does Green Computing --
[4] Hewlett Packard: Small and Medium Enterprise Solutions
[5] TCO Comparison of PCs With Server-based Computing